The Athletic Hockey Show - Bedard or Michkov, who'd you rather?

Episode Date: December 2, 2024

Max and Laz debate which young star you would rather have for your team, Flyers phenom Matvei Michkov or potential generational Blackhawk Connor Bedard. The guys welcome Chris Johnston to discuss the 4 Nations rosters, the NHL cracking down on tampering and the David Jiříček trade to Minnesota, and Jesse Granger stops by to tell the fellas what the Avs can expect from new goalie Scott Wedgewood.Hosts: Max Bultman and Mark LazerusWith: Chris Johnston and Jesse GrangerExecutive Producer: Chris FlanneryProducer: Jeff Domet Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the athletic hockey show. Hey, everybody, Max Boltman here alongside Mark Lazarus for another episode of the athletic hockey show. Chris Johnston's going to join us in a second and Jesse Granger, as always a little bit later. But, as I wanted to start in your neck of the woods because Motvay Michkov and Connor Bedard have kind of been tied at the hip ever since really long before their draft year. And Badard obviously went first in the draft and he's had all the pomp and circumstance over the last one. really two years, I would say, in the major NHL circles. But Mitchkov is off to a really fantastic rookie year here in the States, nearly identical numbers to Bedard.

And I wanted to kind of get your thoughts. We've talked about it plenty with Scott and Corey on the Prospect series, but kind of your thoughts on this little mini rivalry. I don't know if they consider each other rivals even necessarily, but there's two players who we compare to each other so often. Yeah, Badard always plays things like that down, right? Even last year he played down the Brock Faber rivalry as they were going to be, you know, fighting for the Calder Trophy and all.

all that. He tries to downplay all that. And Baderd is kind of on his own of the island, right? Like he is from any prospect we've seen since really Connor McDavid, Carter McDavid, Connor Bredard gets separated. He, the hype around him was unique. Like Matt Badey Mitchcoff did not face that kind of hype. Maclin Celebrini did not face that kind of hype. So it's kind of hard to compare. But, you know, back in that draft year, everybody said that if they thought Matt Bavichikov was coming to come over in one year, he'd be the number two pick. And there was a case to be made for him being number one pick. This isn't someone who came out of nowhere.

Mitch Gop was supposed to be spectacular. He has been spectacular. He's got three overtime winners. And, you know, the fact that he came over after one year instead of three years is incredible because nobody thought that it was going to happen. Nobody thought that he was going to get out of that KHL contract. So, you know, for Rodard, he's on a terrible team. He doesn't have great linemates all the time.

The linemates are changing day after day after day. And his stats aren't great. He went, I think it was 12 or 13 games without a goal, which he probably never went more than six or seven games without a goal in his entire life. I mean, in junior hockey, he never meant more than one or two. So there's a little bit of panic in Chicago about it. He's like, oh, God, what if he's not the generational guy? What if he's not Connor McDavid and Sidney Crosby both won the MVP in their second year?

Connor Bedard's not going to win the heart trophy this year. It's not going to happen. He might not score 20 goals at this rate. But if you look at his overall game, if you see him every night, you realize there's no need to panic. He's playing better hockey. He's starting to come around the offense. He's got two goals, two assistants, last three games. He's starting to make more of those daring Connor Bidard plays that we saw last year.

He danced through three Columbus Blue Jack Jaxx last year and got a great shot off. Connor Baird is going to be fine. I always equate him to Jack Hughes. Jack Hughes's first two years was not an overwhelmingly impressive player, but you still knew he was going to be great, and his third year he popped. You know, Connor Bredard might not ever be Connor McDavid. Maybe nobody will ever be Connor McDavid. But if he's Jack Hughes, if he's Patrick Cain,

Patrick Cain was always the comp, remember with Bader. If he's that kind of player, which he obviously can be, then he's going to be incredibly good for an incredibly long amount of time, and nobody's going to worry about this stuff. Yeah, I'm kind of in a funny spot with it because I think I was one of the, I was never low on Connor Bedard, but I think I did pump the brakes a little more and said it's like more Kane than McDavid kind of thing in his draft year.

And I think at times that people thought I was kind of too, pumping the brakes too much. Oh, dude, I was assigned right before the draft lottery. I was assigned right a Connor Bedard column. We were assuming the Hawks were not going to win the lottery, right? Because they were the third best odds to win it. And I wrote a pump the brakes. Like this isn't fair to this kid.

Right now with the hype, if he's Patrick Kane, who is an MVP, who is a three-time champion, if he's Patrick Kane, he's a disappointment. And that's so unfair. And then the Hawks win the lottery and my column runs, and everyone in Chicago was like, ah, screw this guy. This guy's Debbie Downer all the time. I'm like, no, I wrote that in general.

It wasn't the Hawks thing. But yeah, I was with you. 100%. And now I feel almost crazy that we're talking about, like, this is a disappointing year. He's playing at a first, like, this is first line center production that he's delivering here. And he's 19 years old, right? Like, I'm not worried. He's the second youngest player in league still.

Yeah, he's fantastic. You mentioned Jack Hughes. You know, Bedard's first year was already better than I think both of Hughes's first two years combined production-wise. Like, this is still a guy who's well ahead of the curve, even among first overall pick. Celebrating is having a nice. a rookie year two, by the way. But, but I wanted to dive into the Mitchcoff thing because I, you know, I'm remembering kind of the 2021 world U-18 championships, which was maybe my favorite U-18 that I've gotten to kind of follow. I didn't go to it. I haven't been to any of them

hoping to go this year. But it was such a spectacle, the Baderd versus Mitchcock aspect of it. And Baderd finished the tournament with like 14 points in seven games. Mitchcock bested him. He had to 16 and 12 of those were goals. But Bader gets the gold medal. It was such a great, you know, back and forth. And you just felt like we're going to watch these guys battle for a decade in the NHL or longer. And now here we are, Badar, 19 points and 24 games, Michkov, 19 and 23 games, and he's got almost twice as many goals.

Badar's got the lower shooting percentage, obviously, as you well know, we expect it to catch up. I just love that this race has restarted in full in the NHL. Well, that's what you want, right? You want these young guys to step in and be great. This is what it's exciting. You know, we've been watching Sydney Crosby play for 20 years, and we love seeing Sydney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin and all these guys, but you want those new, exciting young players to come in year after year after year.

That's what keeps the sport alive, right? And Mitch Cough is fantastic to watch. I love watching him play. He's also shooting 21%. He's not going to shoot 21% in his career, just like Bidar is not going to shoot 6%. They're going to regress to the mean both ways, and they're both going to be really good players for a really long time. And I don't know if they're going to be this generation's.

Crosby and Ovechkin because that was kind of a singular thing where you had two of the greatest players that have ever lived and they were on rivals and they didn't like each other that much for a long time. That's not going to happen with Chicago and Philadelphia. They're in different conferences. But, you know, McDavid Eichael, Eichel is fantastic, but nobody can keep up with McDavid. If Mitchcove and Bedard are both just fantastic for a long time, we can have this debate forever and that's what makes sports fun, right? Yes, and you kind of read my mind on that. I do want to become the new Cittanovi. I don't know if it's, I agree, it's probably not super realistic because they're in the different conferences and they're not going to see each other head to head as often.

But the real thing that it would take is what it took for Pittsburgh and for Washington is for one of these guys to win a cup early so that we can really start having the juice of this guy wins versus this guy produces. And that's always the real key there. And maybe the listeners don't want to hear about what narratives I would prefer these two 19 year olds get to get to face for the next decade, but I'm really rooting for that, to be completely honest. Yeah, and we both have to take everything that's happening with them with a grain of salt. Both of them have been, you know, going through the line blender the entire season, so they've had no consistency.

They don't have the best teammates to play with. We don't know what they can be with great players. I mean, Crosby had Malkin, you know, Ovechkin had Baxterum. These guys don't have that. You know, Connor Bredar is playing with Phil Kourashev and Taylor Hall at this stage of his career. Sometimes it's Tyler Birtuzi. Sometimes it's Haver-Tera Vinen. and sometimes it's Jason Dickinson.

It was Joey Anderson for a few games there. There's just not going to be the kind of, you know, teammate that can really elevate them to that 100-point MVP level. But that'll come because both these teams are going to continue to add young players. The Blackhawks right now are the favorite to get the top pick next year. So you imagine you had another forward and all the defensive prospects they have eventually four or five, 17 years from now, whenever, however long this thing's going to take,

you and Detroit know all about how long this can take. at some point, Connor Bedard's going to have an incredible team to play with, and then we'll really see what he's made of and what he can really do because it's hockey, man, you can't do it on your own. Connor McDavid, it took him 10 years or whatever to get to a Stanley Cup final.

You cannot do it on your own. What does Connor Bedard's ideal line look like? What are the complimentary pieces that maximize him? You know, like in basketball, they talk about with LeBron, he needs floor spacers, he needs a shooter, somebody who can, you know,

he can drive the middle and kick it out. Like, what's Badard's ideal linemates look like to you? Well, Baderd's a better playmaker than I think a lot of us gave him credit for. When he came in, we just heard goal score, goal score, and he's got the shot. But goalies eventually figure out the shot to a degree. So he needs someone, we thought Tyler Boutuzzi would be a great fit, a guy who can scrap around the net and kind of pick up the loose change when Baderd gets it on net,

if he can just kind of bounce pucks off of. Hasn't work very well. Bertuzi has really struggled to start the season, and he's in the first year of a four-year contract. They're already hearing the word buyout starts rumbling around Chicago a lot these days. He needs someone like that. and he needs speed, right? That's why we always think, like I think Lucas Reichel should be just surgically attached

to Conner-Burdard's hip for the next three months. I don't care how much they struggle. You give them months to figure this out. This season's lost. Let's figure out if, like, Lucas Reichael, who is just a spectacular skater, can do it. Now, the concern is Bedard likes to carry the puck. Reichel's biggest skill is his speed and zone entries. So maybe they need someone who doesn't need the puck as much.

Maybe you need someone who can kind of catch and shoot on the perimeter a little bit. We're still trying to figure that. out, right? Obviously, Luke Richardson is trying to figure that out because he's put just about every single Blackhawk in the system right now on a Badard line at some point. But I think he needs someone who could really work around the net. Theoretically, a Bertuzi would be a good fit. And he needs some speed. He needs someone who can kind of clear the floor a little bit, like you said, with their speed down the middle of the ice. And I think the retrieval aspect too, right? Like Bedard is not a big guy. And I think he competes pretty hard. But that's the reason I thought

Bertuzi would work so well is the partusi is the guy who can go win pucks down on the forecheck and kick him up to Bedard to make a play. So I think that's a key part of this too, is those retrievals get so overlooked so often when we talk about players' contributions. We treat it as a given. It is not a given, especially in a lot of the top sixes around the league.

Absolutely, especially as the league seems to transition back to this more dump and chase style, that even skill guys are kind of dumping and chasing a little more than maybe we've seen. You still want to enter the zone with speed if you can, but teams are quicker to chip and chase now, and you need guys who can do that. And that was a skill of Lucas Reichols in the H.

and in Germany. Maybe he can still be that guy. I don't think Connor Bedard's best linemate is on the roster right now. It might be Frank Nazar when he's ready to come. He's carrying it up in the HL. It could be Oliver Moore coming up probably by the end of the season when his season that Minnesota is done. There's a lot of first round picks.

The Hawks have had like 100 first round picks in the last four years. Sasha Boy, Vair, Merrick Manick, or whoever they pick next year could be the guy. I would have liked to have seen them draft Demadov over Levchenoff this past year because I think they needed that running buddy. they have a lot of really good forward prospects. They don't have any can't miss top line guys, but they might be able to get one this year. And then, you know, who knows two years from now, he might have his guy.

Yeah, the beautiful thing about this draft class for the Blackhawks is there's, in the, I think we talked about with Corey, it's kind of a clear top four or five, depending on where you want to draw the line, Corey and Scott, four of those five or three of those four would be forward. So they got the D last year, if they're in the top five this year, which you can correct me if I'm wrong. I think that seems pretty likely. Oh, they're going to be in the top five this.

year, yeah. They're going to have a really, really good chance to get a top line forward running made for him. And then, you know, the pipeline is kind of complete at that point. And you start maybe all those assets they have the future first round picks. You start moving those next year's free agency is going to be big. The Hawks are going to have a ton of money to spend at some point. They're going to have to spend it and stop, you know, pretending to be a poverty franchise. You know, I'm not saying they can go out and get Mitch Marner next year, but how good would Mitch Marner look next to Pat to Connor I just, a little Freudian slip that I almost said Patrick Kane, how good would he look at Patrick Kane were still on this team?

What, I'm, I still think that was a big mistake is letting Patrick Kane walk. I don't think Kane really wanted to go. And Kane is exactly the kind of player that Baderd could use, just that gifted playmaker who thinks the game at such a high level. And yeah, they both want the puck on their stick at all times. But I think that Cain would have been willing to kind of seed a little bit of that and kind of take on a mentorship role with Bader.

It would have been the best thing for his career. it would have been the best thing for Bedard's career if they just kept Patrick Kane around. So I always wondered this. And I know the TAVE circumstances are different than the Kane circumstances. But they made both of those decisions before they knew they had won the lottery on those two guys. It was very public that it was the last go-round for TAVs. They had already traded Kane. Do you think there's any regret in Chicago about letting those two veteran standard bearers go out the door right before you get the new guy? You know, management is just insistent that this is what they wanted to do and they stand by it. but when you start to look at the crowds,

they're a little dwindling a little bit. Jersey sales, you know, thank God they got Connor Bedard or this team would be, you know, in real dire straits financially all of a sudden, perhaps. I can tell you that the fan base regrets it. I can tell you that the players, to some degree, regret it, that they wish Patrick Kane was still around, the guys that have been there. And I do think that deep down, if you got them on Truth Serum,

if you had a Wonder Woman's lasso of truth around them, they would think maybe we should have tried to keep Patrick. And they didn't try. Like maybe Kane would have left any, Maybe you would have said, you know what, I want to go chase a cup somewhere. But they never even tried. They never made him an offer. They never gave him the opportunity.

All right, let's take a quick break right there. We'll be right back with Chris Johnson. All right, we are back and we are joined now by our NHL insider at the athletic, Chris Johnson. And CJ, we were talking a lot about Connor Bedard in the first segment. And I'm going to try to bridge, really, the two topics here today. Because we're going to talk with you a little bit about the Four Nations rosters. But I want to know about Bedard's chances at the Four Nations roster for Team Canada.

obviously it's the toughest roster to make in the tournament. Do you see any path for Badard here to make Team Canada? I might quibble and say Team USA's roster is a tough one to make, but just with where we're at in the world, I actually think we're there. But I'm with you. Obviously, it's a tough spot, especially for forwards.

I think when we see this final Canadian roster, there's going to be a few players. You go like, oh, wow, that player didn't make it. And I should be clear, I don't have a copy of the roster, so this is not reporting, but I would say I strongly expect, that Connor Bedard will not be part of this version of Team Canada. And, you know, been asking around about this a little bit over the last month or so.

And one thing someone mentioned to me is Sydney Crosby didn't make Team Canada at 19. You know, why were we expecting Connor Bidad to make it at 19? And I don't think that's so much a shot at Bidad as much as it's an acknowledgement that Crosby had its stronger start to his NHL career, but, you know, that those roster spots aren't just handed out to young players that you know are going to be foundational, important players for many tournaments to come down the line. I just think that at this point in time, it's hard to make a credible argument that he's among Canada's best 13 forwards.

I certainly understand the viewpoint that maybe it's beneficial to bring them there just for the experience, to give them a taste of it. But with not having extra players, maybe the U.S. and Canada really wanted 25 players to be named to these rosters, in which case you would have got 14 forwards. Maybe in that scenario,

you bring them as the 14th forward, because a 14th forward doesn't always dress. Like if you go to the Olympics, teams bring players if there's no injuries that maybe play one game or don't play at all. And so I think that there's more of an argument there, but there's just a little less wiggle room with this roster situation in the possibility of injuries.

And I just don't think he's been good enough to warn a spot on the team yet. Yeah, and Bidar did play at World. He's gotten some of that experience internationally. And obviously his junior career was very impressive internationally. There is something to be said for, you know, kind of laying the groundwork for the tournaments that actually matter, the Olympic tournaments as opposed to this like phony little cash grab that is the Four Nations. But with only one extra forward,

it's really difficult to make a case for Bedard. That said, what do you see as like, I know that, you know, rosters are submitted today. You don't have them. We don't have them.

So we can still speculate until Wednesday when they're announced. Where do you see like the hot button discussions? What were the most heated discussions for the four teams? Well, I'll start with Canada in the U.S. Because I think they're similar in the sense that they both have a tremendous amount of decisions at, you know, really all positions. But the forward positions. And I think where the hot button is, is what do you do with your fourth line and your 13th forward?

And, you know, you and I and Max, like we might individually say, well, just build a fourth line that can score more because, you know, Finland, for example, will not have that kind of fourth line. I mean, we should know what to expect from the Finnish team. There's only so many fins in the NHL that most of them make this team, quite frankly. I think only 10 finish D have played an NHL game this year, and seven of them are going to be on the team. So, you know, I think for Canada and the U.S., a lot of it came down to sort of almost identity questions or how you want to use those spots. You know, in the case of the U.S., I think, you know, some of the more skilled players probably get squeezed out. You know, I look at someone like Cole Cofield that seemed like for some time here is unlikely to make the U.S. team, even though, you know, he's off to a pretty good start. to this season of Montreal,

score a lot of goals so far. But maybe you want to bring a different element there, whether it's guys like a Cried or Brock Nelson or players that can do something different. Maybe Dylan Larkin ends up making that fourth line. I think similarly for Canada, the way these announcements go is the announcement gets made. And then the immediate tweet from those like us

and certainly the story that follows is, who is the biggest snub? Who are the players that aren't there? Forget the team now. We want to know who didn't get picked. And I think, you know, the biggest headlines for Team Canada will be reserved for some group of players that that have offensive ability, they can all make it. I mean, I look at Mark Sheifley, for example, he's had a great start in Winnipeg. The Jets have been one of the nice stories of this early season.

I just not sure if he gets in on this roster because I think they're going to look to accomplish different things with basically one of the spots he'd be vying for. You know, it seems more likely we're going to see like an Adam Lowry there as teammate in Winnipeg. maybe someone like Tom Wilson, I know, was under serious consideration right up until this deadline. And so, you know, that's where I think that the headlines will come from for the most part. Because, you know, these countries could literally send two teams each or certainly could put together two pretty credible forward groups, I think, both Canada and the U.S. And so, you know, that's what I'm looking for. The European countries is a little more clear cut because they're not allowed to bring players in their domestic leagues. It's only NHL players and there's only so many Swedes and Finns in the NHL right now.

I mean, you need to have penalty killers and you need to have someone who could play defense and check. I get all that. But you can overthink this too. We saw that in 2016 at the World Cup where Team USA left a lot of good players at home. We're all thinking of Phil Kessel that year. And they built this John Tortorella team. And it would completely face planted, just flamed out badly.

You can overthink this. Sometimes you just want to put your best players on the roster. Yeah. And I actually think this is what they contend with every year. year when you're one of the deeper countries. You know, it's sort of the same thing with like the U.S. goaltending. I mean, it's hard to ignore that the U.S.

is going to have three top level goaltenders, but you can only play one per game, essentially. And if you're playing two in a game, usually something good didn't happen. So, I mean, generally speaking, it's nice to have depth, but it's a short tournament. And, you know, you have to find a way to use the right players. And I do think with that, that fourth line kind of question is you can go too far. And, you know, from the Canadian viewpoint, it's a lot. long way back to clap back to the Turn Olympics in 2006,

but they did go with sort of some more grinder type players than their skilled guys, and they didn't score enough. I think the last game they lost to Switzerland was 2-0 or 2-1 anyway. It was a very low-scoring game. And then you wonder, well, maybe they should have had more of the offensive players. They should have brought Sidney Crosby at 19.

It's probably the conclusion that you should reach when you look at that. And so, you know, I do think it's a fine line, but I can understand, you know, the hard part is if you're someone who plays first line minutes in the NHL and you're designated as a fourth liner in this tournament, you're just not going to be on the ice much. Maybe you're getting all defensive zone starts instead of what you're used to. Maybe you're not seeing the power play. I mean, it's hard to do what you do best if you're not slotted in the right role. So I do think it's a fine line to walk. And of course, we get the benefit of second guessing,

whatever decisions are made after the fact. I think the beautiful thing about these decisions this time around, especially on the American side compared to then, is your guys that you're, baiting for those like grinder kind of roles are still huge producers, right? Like Brock Nelson had, I don't think he quite got the 70 last year, but he was basically back to back 70 point seasons. He does have plenty of offense. It's not like if you're picking Brock Nelson over Cole Cawfield, you're not going to be able to score a goal.

Brock Nelson can score a goal for you. Exactly. And do you know what's funny? I won't out the person, but there was a member of a team Canada that I covered in a best on best event who told me after the fact it was a prouder moment for him to just be selected to make team Canada than actually. play on the team because he's like, I got there and I barely got to play any minutes. You know, it's, you know, it's not what I'm used to doing in the NHL at the time.

But, you know, it's almost just like the honor of being designated as that I think counts for something. But, you know, it's, it's tough to be. It's got to be hard to be the 13th Ford when you're an all star in the league, when you're playing 20 minutes a night as a Ford normally. And then you might see six minutes in one of these four nations games. And I think that's part of the team building that I don't even, Frank, I don't know how they do it, right? we haven't seen best on best forever. I know some of these guys obviously know each other. Some will be, you know,

teammates from the NHL. But like there's going to be one practice. Then you're into this really short event. I don't know how you establish any idea of a team. But I guess you hope that some of those players like a Brock Nelson will just accept whatever role they have and that they'll be able to find a way to contribute in whatever limited opportunities they get. This tournament is still over two months away.

And this, this makes it really difficult for these guys to make, like I keep coming back to Drew Doughty. If through daddy were healthy, coming off the season he came off of last year, he'd be an absolute no-brainer for Team Canada. He still might make Team Canada. But with two months here, you don't know where he's going to be. You don't know when quite he's going to be back.

And there's a little bit of wiggle room with that. But I guess these guys really don't want to cancel their vacations to Mexico because this is really early to be making these decisions, isn't it? Yeah. And it's not my life. So it's easy for me to say this. But you see players cancel or even sometimes return from vacation a day before the All-Star game because there's a late injury situation.

To me, if you're ever, like I would probably rather give up that to represent my country, even in this kind of tournament, which is admittedly, you know, something invented from thin air and, and we'll probably have no historical value

over the long period of time. It's still pretty cool to wear your, your national team sweater and to play for your country. And like, obviously your parents or anyone that cares about you, he's going to be proud of that. So my point is I think that guys would probably be way more willing to make a last minute change of plans if something comes up here.

And it's funny to bring up Doughty. One of the challenges for Canada is when we last did this 2016 World Cup, the core of that Canadian team had just done a lot of winning, right? Some of them went all the way back to the 2005 World Junior team, which won that tournament in pretty dominant fashion. But then the 2010 Olympics, the 14 Olympics, the 16 World Cup, now the only player remaining, assuming Doughty doesn't, you know, get carried to this tournament will be Sidney Crosby.

I mean, it's essentially a fresh start. And Canada hasn't had as much success since then. Obviously, the U.S. is doing much better at those events. There's now much larger participation. Finland has won a lot of the world events played in since the last best on best. I realize it's not the exact same thing. We were talking about world championships and others. But it feels like the landscape has changed.

And so, well, maybe this tournament is a bit contrived. I will grant you. I'm excited just to see the new narrative start, which won't be defined by this event, but it's the Olympics. It's the World Cup in 2028. hopefully we get to see this regularly and then we get to you know Connor Biddard will eventually be on those teams

he just probably isn't making this one there was some big trade news over the weekend C.J. with David Eurecheck going to Minnesota what I mean obviously at this point we know the deal here now but what do you expect from Eurecheck in Minnesota he obviously wasn't cracking the Columbus lineup do you expect to see him in a prominent role

for the wild now? I wouldn't think short term just with where the wild are out I mean they've had such a great start to the year I think that they view this as a long-term decision. Obviously, when you're giving up four draft picks as they did, plus one of their own prospects in Damon Hunt to get Eurocheck, you know, you're trading for someone who's just turning 21, who has yet to establish himself, you know,

to be fair, in the North American game professionally, he's played NHL games, he's been up and down with Columbus. I think you're trying to stabilize this situation, work with him, and then they see down the road that there's a world, you know, beyond Jared Spurgeon on their team. You know, when it's Brock Faber, and then they're hoping, ideally, your check is on the right side of their second pairing.

When it's, you know, I think this deal is made with five years in mind more than this season. You know, he'll start in Iowa to begin with. But, you know, it's an interesting trade.

In part because it's a team that isn't competing for the playoffs this year, giving up on a recent top pick for one that is trying to win a Stanley Cup this year. It's sort of, it's almost like the inverse of what you expect to see. I think it speaks to how rare of, you know, the trade ship this was. I mean, who knows what David Jirochak's going to be?

I mean, I understand people have concerns about his skating. You know, one scout might watch that and say he'll never be anything impactful to NHL. Obviously, the Wild's view on that is that we can work with this. And this, you know, this is a six foot four right shot defenseman, you know, who's going to be an impactful NHL player for 15 years. So, you know, it's an unusual trade in that it's not typically the kind of player we see dealt, especially during the season. And the Wilde give up a lot of draft capital.

that's a reflection of the fact this was a sixth overall pick. Essentially, if you use those pick value models and all those picks that Colorado sent back, it basically roughly equates to what, you know, people who ascribe to that, the Perry model, I guess we'll call it, you know, it's basically the equivalent of a sixth overall pick back in return. And that's pretty impressive from Columbus to get that. Like, I'm not saying Eurocheck was like a truly distressed asset, but there was clearly tension there.

They had clearly, you know, sent him down. And I don't know that usually you win that situation. or you get par value back if you're the blue jacket. So I know you'd probably rather have the one huge piece that equates to that than the three smaller ones, but I was pretty impressed by the return they got. Yeah, they squeezed them. It's because there was a few teams there too, right? They had leverage in those talks to credibly go back and say, look, your offers this,

you know, we need this and get it done. I think the fact that this trade happened on what, I guess November 30th, but the fact that happened in season is a reflection of the fact that they were worried about him becoming more distressed, that if more. time went along and he was in Cleveland and everyone came to really know and understand that David Jurichick wasn't happy. You know, maybe over time you don't have the same juice when you're making that trade.

But I'm with you. I didn't quite expect that level of return necessarily. And still, that being said, there's a world where Minnesota absolutely wins his trade because generally speaking, you want quality over quantity. And,

you know, I guess the debate is what quality they got back. And it's, we're talking about a human being and literally just turn 21. I don't know what David Gerrachach's going to be, but you look at his skill set, his attributes, and he looks like something that could be pretty special. Well, that's just it. We don't see guys like this become available at this age. He turned 21 three days ago. And as for a defenseman, defensemen tend not to come into

their own until 23, 24, 25. So to have that kind of a number six overall pick available for trade less than two years after his draft, and a guy who's already been in the NHL at that age, we don't see this. It's usually it's, you know, these change of scenery trades happen when the guys had four or five years in an organization and it's not happening. We see like an Alex Nealander type trade. We don't see top six picks moved this quickly because a team's already kind of lost faith in them. This is a very unusual situation to see a guy like this available. Right. Well, because if you have a sixth overall pick, it means you had a pretty crappy year usually, right? I mean, absent maybe something weird happening or being a result of another

trade you've made to have that pick. I mean, generally you've invested a really difficult season into getting that six overall pick. You're highly incentivized to make it work with that player. And I think maybe it's just a reflection, ultimately the fact, you know, there's been two GMs now in Columbus since he was drafted. You've had three coaches, if we count the Mike Bobcock era, which wasn't really an era. But there's been a lot of turnover with that organization. And it's probably easier to say goodbye, not that it's ever easy to sixth overall pick, when the person making that decision really isn't tied to the original decision to draft him. And so that's to my best of what I can tell has happened here.

Because it's also not as though Dave Dierchak, of course, wants to be in the NHL. I don't think he's been rilled with everything that's, you know, been done with his development so far. But it wasn't like he walked out on the team and said trade me. I mean, he was, he went down to Cleveland. He scored some goals of late. He had an overtime winner recently down there for them. I mean, he's, he's complied with with what the team asked of him. But yeah, it's, it is an unusual set of circumstances.

And that's why you get a trade that, you know, it's really, on an NHL trade, the type of trade we see too often. Great note here from our producer, Jeff, by the way, five of the top 14 picks from 2022 have already been traded when you factor in Cutter, Goteer, Matt Savoy, Connor Geeky, and Rucker McGority. So to let Laz's point, rare to see a guy traded this early, but not in that draft class, apparently.

Well, unfortunately, they're kind of the children of the pandemic in the NHL, right? I mean, they had a lot of weird developmental seasons, you know, 2020 and 2021, specifically leading into that draft. year, obviously individually, they had different opportunities. I think teams were flying a little more blind at that time, too. Just throwing it out there as a possibility. It might also just be one of these strange years where it wasn't that deep of a class. All right.

One more thing we want to hit with you, CJ, before we let you go, is this idea that the NHL has kind of reinforced the tampering rules to the GMs or reemphasized it, I guess I should say. What's going on with that? Was there some impetus here that they weren't happy with? The impetus was July 1, 2024. four. And the NHL at the senior level saw some things that day they didn't like. And whether it was in maybe some of the reporting leading up to when the free agent bell

officially rang, when it was maybe the timing of some complex deals that somehow are being done at like 1201 Eastern time, one minute into when you're supposed to be able to just start talking to free agents. You know, the league I think it just didn't like what was going on that day and decided that it was sort of a line in the sand type of moment. And so there's no new rules here per se. I mean, it's been in the NHL constitutional all along that you can forfeit draft picks. You can be fine significant money either for your franchise or a GM that is found to have committed tampering. But, you know, I think what the league is saying is we're watching closely now because we don't like what we saw here. And so it started in November when they

had the GM's meeting in Toronto. This message was delivered directly to the GMs verbally. And and it was followed up with a specific, you know, memo that came around last week in which they just reminded everyone, don't do it. I don't know how you stop it. Let's face it, NHL is the world's smallest town. If you grew up in a small town, you know what a small town is. Everyone knows everyone's business, whether you're trying to know it or not. You know, a lot of player agents represent a wide variety of players.

I think that there's incentive on both sides to try to line up the dance partners ahead of free agency starting, even if maybe all the details of a deal aren't worked out. maybe there's kind of a wink wink. I've got a right shot winger who's on the market that might like to live in your city, GMX. So I don't know that you can ever stop it, but the NHL is sort of saying, hey, we're watching now and there's some pretty stiff penalties if we find out for sure you did it. Why did they get rid of the way, the little talking period where you could have these discussions like a week before free agency?

That was the ideal way of doing this where you can still have your big blowout coverage on July 1st. Why would they get rid of that? The irony of all ironies is they got rid of it because they thought there was too much tampering, happening during that period. So I don't really know other than because the rules for that period were weird. The rules were that players could talk to teams, he could travel to the cities, which we saw some of the top four agents do to check out facilities and like, but you weren't supposed to negotiate the contract.

Basically, you're supposed to build to size each other up as potential fit, but not actually negotiate a deal. And then I think that they found that, okay, naturally, if you fly to Boston and you decide you want to live there, you're probably going to figure out what the deal is, because because that's part of the decision, right? So it was removed because they thought it was too much tampering. Maybe we'll see it come back. I don't know.

Again, as I say, I think it's a little bit of a futile game. I can understand why the league is saying, look, if we find any evidence of this, like if you put this in an email and we see it, like I get why they have to enforce that. But I just think you can have a casual conversation verbally that no one's recording. And I mean, what can really be done at the end of the day? but the league's letting you know they're watching. And so maybe at 1201 this year, we won't have any deals announced.

They'll wait till 1212 or something. Yeah, I was going to say, if they get rid of this too much, I'm going to lose my 1201, 1205 rhythm here. We don't want to get rid of that too much. We don't want to wait until 4 p.m.

There's cottages to get you up in Canada. Come on. I was going to say someone who likes to see July 2nd or 3 come because, you know, one of the great things about our sport is most of free agency gets taken care of quickly. You know,

I feel bad for our baseball brethren. Some of the best players are still on sign. don't follow it that closely, but I know one Soto hasn't spurned my Blue Jays officially yet. So, um, anyway, it's a long way of saying that. Nobody signs until the best players signed. So because Soto hasn't, there's only been like three deals period in free agency already for baseball. It's crazy.

Right. So I, I don't mind the race myself, but I mean it's- Keep tampering boys. We like it. Yeah. Tamper away. Just do it from a safe distance and we'll get on with our summers. Well, I think we got our podcast headline for the day.

CJ, great stuff. Thanks for joining us. We'll be right back with Jesse Granger. All right, and we are back now with Jesse Granger for Granger Things presented by BetMGM. And Jesse, I feel like we've been hounding you for like a month now about when are the avalanche going to trade for a goalie? Well, they did it. They get Scott Wedgwood. Are you satisfied?

No. I, it wasn't the trade. All right. I just come by, Jesse. This was a great segment. Just why I watch goalies all day for expertise like that. No, it's very surprising to me that they would trade a younger. promising backup in Justice Anunin, who hasn't played well this season, but is also not, like, this,

this isn't the season Justice Anunnhoon is supposed to be good. He's for the future. And I think it's a good trade for Nashville. They obviously got rid of Yaroslav Ascarov, their super promising young prospect. Anun is not quite that level of prospect, but he is a young goalie with potential. So I like him going to Nashville. I like it for the predators. I'm surprised that the Avalanche would give up a prospect like that for to upgrade at backup maybe slightly. Like Scott like Wedgwood isn't a bad goalie, but he's a he's certainly a backup goalie. And I think he's a steady veteran backup goalie who's going to give you a little bit more than Justice Anoon and Wood.

But to me, the Avalanche have a starting goalie problem, not a backup goalie problem. And if their idea is that Wedgwood's going to eventually take the starting job, which I don't think that's what they're hoping. But if that's what they're hoping, they're in a lot of trouble, if they are hoping that Wedgwood can just kind of settle things down, take some pressure off Giorgiiv, let him get back to his game, then it makes a little more sense. And I just think that that's putting a lot of faith in Alexander Giorgiyev,

getting his game back together. Because to me, with Wedgwood and Giorgiev, Giorgiv is clearly the better goalie to me. I think he has the much higher ceiling. I think that if they're both on their games, Giorgives the better goalie. The question is, is that good enough? Is Giorgiyev's best good enough to get the avalanche where they want to go?

Because they didn't upgrade in that area. Like to me, they didn't upgrade the ceiling of their goal titting. Maybe they upgraded the floor a little bit because Wedgwood is, he knows what he's doing. He's a professional. He's certainly going to provide you more stable backup starts than a Noonan would at this time. But that's about it. And you ask Avs,

You look at this team, and I just don't think that upgrading the backup position a little bit is the goalie move that they needed to make. I just don't think that does enough for what this team needs. I don't know how big of an upgrade it is in GSAX, but it's definitely a big upgrade in quotes per 60. Wedgwood is one of the best quotes in the league. So if you're in Denver right now covering that team, congratulations. That's a big move for you. Well, what's the move they should have made? Like there doesn't seem to be a lot of, like, incredibly great goalie options out there.

There's a lot of like kind of jets them and flots them kind of floating around. Like maybe John Gibson's got one more good year left than them or maybe one of the 16 Red Wings goalies will come over or, you know, maybe the Blackhawks will be able willing to part with Peter Morazick. Like who is the best option here then? That's the guy. And you know him well, seen him in Chicago all this. I think to me, if I were the abs, that's the guy I would be calling about. And maybe Chicago doesn't want to trade Peter Morazick. I don't know.

But he like Peter Marazic, I think can come in and be. be a better goalie than Georgiev, give you hot, he raises your goal-tending ceiling. Yeah. So to me, that's the move. I also think that they're like, I hype up McKenzie Blackwood a lot. He's never had above a 900 safe percentage. But I think McKenzie Blackwood, I think, is a, is a swing at a ceiling. Like, maybe it doesn't work out.

It hasn't worked out in every stop he's had so far. But he's a very high potential goalie who could come in and take Georgiev's job, be the starting goalie, give you the goaltending you need. I think Morazic could do that. I think Gibson, while much, much riskier because you're probably going to have to pay more, you're going to have to take on that big salary. That one is one where if you miss, like if you miss on Blackwood, who cares? If you miss on Gibson, it puts you in a bad spot salary cap-wise. So I do think that Gibson is more risky, but I think that the Gibson trade would have the potential to give you what you need, which is better starting goaltending. Morazek's interesting because the

Blackogs don't want to trade him. He signed through next year, and he's one of the the only thing is keeping them even moderately respectful, respectable at this point. But the Blackhawks are facing a big issue with Laurent Braswa hurt. Arvid Soderbloom's been getting a bunch of starts, four more starts, which he's going to get, and he's not waiver exempt anymore. So they're going to be carrying three goalies. Whenever Laurent Braswa comes back and he's still like six weeks out at this point, because he just had a second procedure on his knee, they're going to have three goalies.

And you can't carry three goalies in this league. It's just not tenable. And Marazic is going to be the most tradable asset they have, but would that second year of his contract scare teams off? I don't think it would. Man, he's been good. Like, he's playing behind a bad defense, and he is like, every night I watch Marazik, he looks awesome out there.

I think you put him behind a strong Colorado team that possesses the puck a lot. Like, I don't think the abs defend particularly well. When they're having to defend, they give up chances. But they just have the puck so much that when you're the abs goal, you just don't face that many high-danger chances because your team has the puck the whole night. I think I would I would love to see what Marazic could do behind a team like Colorado. He's fiery. He's like he's he's a compete kind of goalie.

He's back there. Like I think he'd be very good for Colorado. And like to me, I would be much more excited about a move like that than Wedgwood. Now, I will say with this Wedgwood trade, I'm, I'm not high on it. I don't think they upgraded that much. But I will say if it's the first move, it could be a good one. Like it reminds me a little bit of what New Jersey did last year. They were trying to get Markstrom at the deadline.

and they didn't end up getting him, but they traded for Jake Allen. And on its own, it was like, okay, well, Jake Allen isn't saving your season. What are you doing? But then they end up getting Markstrom in the off season. And Jake Allen is like the perfect backup goalie for a contending team where if your guy goes down, you know he can step in and give you legitimate goaltending. I think Wedgwood is that. I think maybe not quite as good as Alan, but I think Wedgwood is a very good, solid backup

goalie for a contending team, probably better than Annen is. But in order for that trade to mean anything, you've got to get a better starting goalie. So either Giorgiev has to suddenly find his game or they have to make another move. And then I think Wedgwood fits in well. Jesse Laz mentioned when we were talking about other options for the abs, the 16 Red Wings goalies, but they're dropping like flies. I mean, Alex Lyon and Cam Talbot both injured in the last week. And now just as of a few minutes ago as we're recording this, they're calling up Sebastian Cosa.

We'll see if he's going to get into a game route. They've already got Villi Huso up there. but it's a little earlier than I think the plan, or at least my expectation was that you'd see COSA this year. Do you think he's ready at this point? I mean, he's killing it in the AHL. And I do think that I do think that playing too much AHL can be bad for a goalie. Like I think you can pick up bad habits. The flow of play is not the same down there.

I think that like the AHL is incredibly valuable for a goalie. And dominating there is important. And he is doing that. But I do think you can you can do that too much. I don't know if he's ready for the NHL. I haven't watched like his last few A HL starts, so I can't go that deep into it. But I am excited to see him play.

And I think that even if say he only plays a game or two here and then Albatan comes back and you send him back down there, I was talked. So Utah just played Vegas and Jackson Stalber, not a highly touted goalie, but he got his first shut out of his career here in Vegas. And he actually played in Chicago quite a bit. And then he had a long stretch where he didn't play in the NHL.

He went back to the HL. And I was talking to him after the game. And he mentioned what seeing that NHL action did for him because all of a sudden you see regular season, not preseason, you see regular season, NHL action. You know what it's like. Then you go back down to the AHL. You play a whole year down there, which is what COSA would probably do, finish the year out. All of a sudden, now when you're in the HL, you know what it looks like, you know what it feels like. You know the things you need to work on. You actually have a vision for where you need to get. I do think that that could be really valuable for a high-end prospect by COSA. Let him see what it's like. like, then send him back down to the HL when everybody gets healthy and let him try to get to that spot he thinks he needs to be. Maybe as soon as next year, I mean, he's a stud. All right, let's switch gears here quick. I know you were looking at the bet MGM odds on the heart trophy coming up and you being Mr. Goli and Mr. Vegas. Yeah.

You're not on the same Carril Caprizov bandwagon and everybody else is on? I love Caprio Caprizov. It is funny that he's the leader. Like at this point, it's like, I feel like it's almost impossible for anyone but McKinnon or McDavid to be the odds leader. But Carril Caprisov actually is the favorite. right now. But yeah, I think there's a couple people that aren't being maybe paid attention to as much as they should. I see Jack Eichl every night here in Vegas, and he has been brilliant. He's playing the best hockey of his career. He's everything for the Golden Knights right now with Mark Stone out and some big pieces missing. He's already, I mean, his career high for points. He's never been a point

per game guy. And he has for certain seasons when he's been injured, but he's never really been close to the hundred point mark. His career high is 82. He's already got 36 this year. He's on pace for 118, and I expect that pace to continue. Is he scoring enough goals? He's only got eight goals. Is he scoring enough? That's the issue when it comes to like heart trophy discussion. He probably will need to score more.

The goals haven't been happening for him on the power play. I expect that to go up. The Golden Knights have the second ranked power play in the NHL, and it runs through him. Everything on the power play runs through Jack Eichol. So that many touches on a successful power play, I do expect him to get some more goals. It has mostly been assists, but what he's doing is so impressive because he isn't playing on some super line like you see in Colorado or sometimes in Edmonton, they'll load up. Jack,

like he did have Mark Stone on his wing to start the year and they were very good, but Stone's been injured for a month and hasn't played. Ico's playing with players like Ivan Barbashev, Pavl Dorofiev, he had Cal Burke on his wing for a couple games. He is dragging along players that probably don't, like now, those players are filling in well. They're getting to the right spot. They're scoring the goals when he feeds them. But these are not typical first line players. He is dragging them along and he's doing it against the top lines on the other side every night. And he's been their best defensive forward.

I just think Ikel deserves more credit nationwide. I don't think everybody's talking about Jack Eichol the way he should be. He's been their best player on the penalty kill. He's the power play runs through him. He transports the puck up the ice. His coursey numbers are great because he has the puck so much. he's dragging along players that probably aren't quite that caliber and they're all on career high. Every player that's played with Jack Eichol on the Golden Knights is on pace to break their career high for goals this year.

He's just been unreal. How about with Connor Helleba? Because he does feel like with the Jets, he is the biggest reason for their success. And if you're going to be really true to the definition of the award, the player most valuable to his team, he's got, I think, as good an argument as anybody. Yeah. So the Jets played Vegas here in Friday. and it something, I wasn't even really considering Hellebuck for Hart. Well, I mean, I would if you think about it, but it wasn't in my mind.

And then I see the betting line move. And it was something interesting to me because so for Friday's game, we didn't know who the Jets goalie was going to be. We didn't see who was first off at Morningscape. Everyone had just projected it to be Hellebuck because he plays every game basically for that team. I mean, he's like he, his workload is insane so far. And then warm up start.

Eric Comrie leads them out onto the ice. First thing I did was go to the bet MGM and look at the odds. And I don't know if I, and I tweeted this out, if anyone listening's got a better, I don't think there is a player in the NHL that can move a betting line more than Connor Hellebuck right now. Now, that says something about not having the strongest backup in the league in Eric Comrie, super nice guy, but he's not like a superstar backup. I think so they just laid out.

The line was minus 105 in each direction. So it's a pickum. and the moment it gets reported that Eric Comrie is starting, the Golden Knights move to minus 120 favorites, which is so that's a 15 cent move on the line, which in hockey, players don't move lines like that. Like it's not like football where a quarterback goes out and all of a sudden the

line changes. Like, I don't know if Connor McDavid changes the line 15 cents. If all of a sudden Connor McDavid's a late scratch, I don't know if the line moves 15 cents for McDavid. But Connor Hellebuck is so important to this team that it completely changes the outlook of a game. when he's not in net.

And if you're going to, if you're going to, and this is money that's being bad. I mean, these casinos are doing this with money on the line. And if that's your reaction to Connor Hellebuck, it's like, well, it's pretty hard to argue that this guy isn't a heart contender if he means that much that it can changes the odds on a game when he gets ruled out. So just very interesting to me, a little small betting line change that made me think about Hellebuck maybe in a different way. I think it's, I think it's, if you're arguing Hellebuck for Hart, that's a good place to

start. Sounds like an MVP candidate to me. That's going to do it for us. Thanks for listening to this episode of The Athletic Hockey Show. Please, if you're enjoying the show, leave us a rating, preferably a five-star rating. Sean, Sean, and Frank, you have the next episode of The Athletic Hockey Show on Wednesday. We'll talk to you then.